What's your view on Affirmative Action?

IOKIYAR

We cannot have a special prosecutor on torture,
We cannot have a special prosecutor on how we went to war,
We cannot have a special prosecutor on firing US Attorneys for base politics,
We cannot even make sure we count our election ballots properly,

BUT....



Oh, and blowjobs, we must have one for blowjobs.

(via Balloon Juice)

Dear Government, spend more money

Sincerely Teabaggers:

Protesters who attended Saturday’s Tea Party rally in Washington found a new reason to be upset: Apparently they are unhappy with the level of service provided by the subway system.

Uh, yeah.

Oh no, we can't have that

We can't have insurance executives forced to justify their profitability and shit like recision:

“It’s completely fair to talk about profits and reserves and compensation and how they make their decisions,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a leader of the Progressive Caucus. “Let them come and make their case.”

But they're not spending $1.4 million a day on Congress just to be made to answer questions.

Stay bought, goddammit, stay bought!

Well, that's "some" change

Not forgotten, just disappointed.

Not a lot, but something. Here's a policy change from the Bush Administration's "manufactured reality" division that appears to be on the way out and good riddance:

Barack Obama has abandoned the US's controversial plan to build a missile-defence system in Europe in one of the sharpest breaks yet with the policies of the Bush administration, according to reports from Washington today...

The decision will be framed by many on the right as "appeasement" (when don't they pull out that cliche?), but a costly boondoggle is a costly boondoggle. Putting 10 silos in Poland and a big ass radar station in Czechoslovakia (d'oh!) the Czech Republic will cost the U.S. taxpayer billions and accomplish nothing but a new political football for the east and west to squabble about -- but which achieves nothing realistic.

So that may be one stupid, expensive, and irrational policy down. I hope Glenn Beck cries.

[cross-posted to Firedoglake]

Yeah, just like him

Fresh off a George W. Bush appointee dismissing her latest crank's case against Obama, Orly Taitz is not going to go gentle into that crazy ass night.

Best if read in drunken Arianna Huffington voice:

"[S]omebody should consider trying [the judge] for treason and aiding and abetting this massive fraud known as Barack Hussein Obama."

"This is so outrageous what this judge did -- it goes in the face of law and order," said Taitz, reached at her office in Mission Viego, CA. "Not every judge is as corrupt as Judge Land. Some judges believe in the Constitution. And some judges believe in the rule of law."...

Don't worry Orly, Lou Dobbs will let you peak under the sombrero.

Fear of a Black Anything

Save Dan Riehl from the vile indecency that is being a TEENAGER while BLACK!!

They are giving him THE VAPAHS!

No tragic irony there

Crystal Lee Sutton, the inspiration behind "Norma Rae" died of brain cancer a few days ago. In a tragic irony, touching on issues of today (because we all know the GOP has all but eliminated unionization) her last days reveal the nature of our current health care system:

She went two months without possible life-saving medications because her insurance wouldn’t cover it, another example of abusing the working poor, she said.

“How in the world can it take so long to find out (whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could be a matter of life or death,” she said. “It is almost like, in a way, committing murder.”

A "death panel" if you will.

How stupid and offensive do you have to be ...

To NOT be invited back on the news to spew your bile?

Apparently, there are no limits if you're a Republican. It almost demands an acronym doesn't it?



Meanwhile, Marcy Wheeler said "blowjob" so she's apparently banned for life.

Obama does the chat shows Sunday, SUNDAY!

Which "important" topic will the nation's first Chief Executive of Color be asked about more?

A. Kanye West?
B. Serena Williams?
C. Our nation's "new" rash of purported black-on-white violence as purported by Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge?

Because we all know how often John McCain is asked about Lady GaGa and Brett Favre.

Nobody could have anticipated

It's amazing how Max Baucus' strategy of negotiating against himself, cleverly produced a plan that still failed to gain a single Republican supporter.

Senate Democrats are going to have to move forward on healthcare without a single Republican supporter after Sen. Olympia Snowe said Tuesday she could not back the Finance Committee’s bill.

Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) failed to win any Republican backer despite weeks of intense negotiations behind closed doors to strike a deal.

So, can we at least go back to the plan you used to have Max, you sly dog? The one that had a public option.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I'm sorry but "The University of Your Ass" is totally unaccredited

Oh look at the teary-eyed, narcissistic, dry-drunk lie:

Glenn Beck appeared this morning on Fox & Friends, where he insisted that the the Tea Party march on Washington attracted 1.7 million people...Beck cited a university study of the crowd -- though he's not sure which university: "We had a university, I think it's University of -- I don't remember which university it is -- um, look at the pictures. And you know, they can do body space and calculate -- 1.7 million, that crowd was estimated."

RIP

Patrick Swayze:

America's Concern Troll

I cannot believe that decorated veteran Charlie Rangel thinks that he has the same right to avoid prosecution as noble torturer and draft evader Dick Cheney!

Uh, he's a bigot

It's no secret that Steve King (R-*sigh* Iowa) is a bigot. He's got a nice long record of picking on any group that doesn't derive its color from a tanning booth.

And he continues his "white & proud" tradition:

[Wilson] is an officer and a gentleman and everyone who knows him knows that. … Being a son of the South puts you in a different position when it comes to the Confederate flag.

An officer & a gentlemen...like Nathan Bedford Forrest.

They don't call him "Moran" for nothing

Lemme see, it's apparently "journalism" to take an off-the-record aside about "celebrities" that is based on hearsay and then make snide comments about someone being "presidential" while pretending to be all "journalistic".

Got it.

Thanks for being so awesome.

Changing times

There was a time when anything that smacked of government involvement in health care was labeled "socialism".

Okay, another time besides this one.

The stance of private physicians was overwhelmingly hostile -- you know like Republicans are now (though I'm pretty sure the AMA was never into fabricating birth certicates so there were differences).

Well, though it doesn't necessarily mean it will work its way through thick skulls this was good to see:

A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) study published in Monday's New England Journal of Medicine shows that 63 percent of physicians support a health reform proposal that includes both a public option and traditional private insurance. If the additional 10 percent of doctors who support an entirely public health system are included, then approximately three out of four physicians nationwide support inclusion of a public option.

Not that anyone seems to be listening. I guess a private insurance system that does stuff like this is too awesome to change:

It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

BINGO!

Saw this at Balloon Juice, but it's from Matt Taibbi and it is spot on about the "teabaggers" as just the latest in a series of dupes:

Actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish . . . can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters! After all, those people earned those bonuses! If ever there was a textbook case of peasant thinking, it’s struggling middle-class Americans burned up in defense of taxpayer-funded bonuses to millionaires. It’s really weird stuff.

Hangin' round with terrorists

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Osama bin Laden, TEABAGGER:

'Bin Laden' tape harangues Obama

When life recreates freaky commercials

That freaky-yet-kind-of-awesome Nike Pro commercial Adrian Peterson is in is one thing.

How about the guy literally outdoing that commercial?



"Play on, Playa"

Nation of Morans

Fresh off displaying a mass of ignorance and illiteracy the nation's conservatives refuse to let Americans dare have the choice of spending their own money --

Despite the fact that On The Origin of Species has won a Toronto film festival award and debuts in Britain this week, U.S. distributors have declined to take up the flick, which chronicles scientist Charles Darwin's crusade to bring modern science, common sense and progress into all of our lives. And, yes, diehard Christians are to blame:

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

The film, which stars Paul Bettany and his wife, Jennifer Connelly, has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".

Mull away please, mull away

Palin, Gingrich, Huckabee and now this. Big Butter Jesus loves me in spite of myself.

Rick Santorum, the socially conservative former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, is mulling a run for the White House in 2012, says a pro-life news Web site.

Oh please, oh please...



imagine how six years would add to this picture.

Oh ye of little effort to remember your post

Ambinder makes note of just how effective Bush's merde touch was in every fashion:

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.

And how comes the naivete and the forecast of douchebaggery:

It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.

Are you fucking kidding me?

They are full of pride about it right now! It's called lying until you believe the opposite of reality to be true. It's what they do.

And will you call them on it in the future Ambinder, having written this post?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

That Hump

The ubiquitous ads for it are one thing. But I saw an interview between Leno and Bob Costas on NBC last night with a ridiculous satellite delay that Leno was apparently unable to comprehend.

I've always been a Letterman guy, but there's something compelling about just how big a train-wreck this could be.

Of course, I won't be watching the train wreck. I mean, he's a hump.

Achucka-chucka-wow-wow

This should go over well in Iowa -- although it has a hint of accuracy:

This week, Allison Vivas of Pink Visual received a fax from Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) group, informing her that she’s been chosen for a 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year award by his Business Defense and Advisory Council.

This tremendous honor is a testament to your success in building your business and recognition of the risks you take to create jobs and stimulate the economy.

And here's where it gets awesome:

Pink Visual is a porn DVD superstore

A life well lived

Thanks Norman Bourlag.

Nice epitaph:

"Norman E. Borlaug saved more lives than any man in human history," said Josette Sheeran, the head of the World Food Program, on Sunday.

Atta J. Turk's trusty NFL Picks

1. Steelers over Titans.










What, I have to give some others?

Okay,

Vikings over Cleveland, because Brown has asked what it can do for me and I politely requested it not hurt an old man. Oh, and then there's that Adrian Peterson guy who is a space-freaking alien -- and yes I believe everything I see on TV and don't you dare take my guns aways from me Obama Hitler.

Washington over Giants because I always pick the team with the most outrageously offensive nickname and helmet design.

Packers over Bears, because all previous Favre-love has begun its transference into Rogers-love. At least until Bart Starr comes back.

Bengals over Broncos, because for once Chad Johnson-cinco is the least annoying receiver on the field (do they play the Bills this year? 'Cuz that will make it twice).

Patriots over Bills, because Brady-love is more potent than even Favre-cum-Rogers love.

Chargers over Raiders, because what is more awesome than a game at the Raiders' stadium (the "Black Hole") where they play that awesome NFL-films provided song and poem "The Autumn Wind" and the Raiders run out of the tunnel and proceed to be humiliated by three touchdowns as Al Davis puts his thumbs under his chin, decked out in his NFL-properties leisure-suit and chained-granny-glasses (a look totally stolen by Kim Jong-Il), phoning down play calls insisting that Darryl Lamonica throw deep to Warren Wells? Well, lots of things actually, but still it's pretty awesome.

I don't pick point spreads -- gambling is bad for you. I suggest drinking excessively instead followed by a heavy evening of smoking in bed.

I'll be updating my record throughout the year. Which is why I'm generally going to give these picks on the following Tuesday after they're played.

Dear Teabaggers

I'd take your arguments about "fiscal" matters from you slightly more seriously but for two plain facts.

1. You were in charge during the prior 8 years when for the first time in decades Americans saw their lifestyles decrease across the board while you ran up giant deficits and started financed hundreds of billions of needless wars with money that was not even in the budget.

2. You cannot tell the difference between 60,000 to 70,000 people and two million...or more importantly, you don't give a shit and want to toss a laughable lie out there so it gets accepted by your fellow members two incompetent to know that you were going to the Washington on the east coast.

...but hey, Seattle's a liberal city so I'm sure their Obama as Hitler posters were welcomed with people gesturing toward them that they're "number one".

MATLOCK!!!

David Broder: Staying Bought -- he got LOTS of speaking money from the Health Insurance industry to weave his mentholated bipartisan magic.

So naturally Obama's problem isn't health insurance, it's not doing what the insurance companies (and their man Broder) want.

Gay Marriage in Iowa -- Guess what? The sky hasn't fallen

Nice story from the KC Star:

The wedding and accompanying legal certificate will not matter to Wayland’s home state of Missouri — nor to any of Iowa’s neighbor states.

Yet from those states hundreds of couples have funneled into Hawkeye country, with open checkbooks, for same-sex nuptials.

“It mattered for us to be able to choose a place in the Midwest that felt like home,” Wayland said.

It mattered, also, to the silver-haired owners of the Brass Lantern, Terry and Margie Moore. Ordained ministers who had never officiated a same-sex wedding, they hope to keep their romantic-getaway business going by welcoming couples of all kinds.

Across Iowa, a growing network of wedding planners, caterers, florists, photographers and even local chambers of commerce are with them.

But it's a small victory, a nice victory, a quiet victory. Gay people are not flocking to Iowa because, well, it's Iowa. That's not a slam, it's just the same reason other people don't flock here. But many are coming, having ceremonies and spending about $2,500 a pop. Over time, not bad. And, over time, not changing. A small bit of tolerance and decency winning against the loud, bullshit, tide.

But this may sum it up even better

From Alex Pereen at Gawker:

On 9/12, people in New York (and DC) did not feel as "great" as Glenn Beck. They just felt like shit. They felt scared and confused and depressed. Many of them were drunk. And only an idiot or an actual terrorist would want to always feel like it was 9/12/01. And eight years later, normal people, with brains and souls, have decided that some emotional distance from that disaster is healthier and wiser than trying to recapture the dread.

So thank fucking christ that the Commander in Chief is no longer subjecting the nation to death porn.

No, this year it's limited to a nutty little cult leader on basic cable who is encouraging his radicalized band of fanatical followers to invade the cities where the tragedy actually happened in order to shock the populace back into fear.

Glenn Beck is an actual terrorist, and the people attending his rally in DC tomorrow are al-Qaeda in America.

I remember 9/12 thank you very much

Disgust, shock, revulsion, anger, etc. All while living no where near Manhattan, rural Pennsylvania or the Beltway.

It certainly wasn't about questioning who was President or labeling other Americans traitors, socialists, or bitching about my taxes.

This sums up the whole Beckian bullshit quite well:

I was at home in Brooklyn, holding my six-week-old baby on the couch, when I saw the second plane crash into the World Trade Center on TV. I watched the smoking pit of the ruins from the roof of my apartment building as bits of memo paper and ash drifted on the winds to my neighborhood. I was there on 9/11, and 9/12, and 9/13. You'll excuse me if I don't feel warm nostalgia for the lingering smell of burnt airplane fuel, and metal, and bodies.

Nor, of course, does Beck. What he purportedly wants is to bring back our feeling of "unity." I remember that feeling. After 9/11, I remember hardcore liberal New Yorkers rallying behind Rudy Giuliani, saying nice things about President Bush when he spoke at the WTC ruins. I remember thousands of American flags being flown out of apartment and brownstone windows, not as political statements or in the you-better-prove-your-patriotism spirit of flag pins and Freedom Fries, but simply because we felt we Americans were all in this together.

So since March, what has Glenn Beck been doing to re-establish that sense of nonpartisan national brotherhood? Calling President Obama a racist, declaring that the government was bringing fascism upon us, asking his fans to dig up dirt on political figures he doesn't like, and predicting civil-war-like uprisings. Because that's how you bring people together.

None of us have a unique claim on the meaning of 9/11, or 9/12. The fact that I was in New York on 9/11 does not make my views about anything that's happened since more valid than anyone else's. (If you were in Montana on 9/11, your views are just as legitimate as mine.) Millions of us were here, and we drew millions of different lessons from that day...

You want to bring back the feeling of national unity and civility, Glenn Beck? You could start by not using this tragedy as your personal political platform.

A short history of exploitation

9/11 wasn't just used to invade countries with no relation to the event so we could kill several times more brown people over the 3,000 we lost that day. Because surely that would be an awesome memorial to innocent people -- to get even more innocent people killed in their name.

No, it was also a time to display the absolute BEST in American artisitic license and exploitative capitalism.

And thus, in memory of that day tonight, make sure you eat your nachos off your Commemorative Plate.

The Place for Crying Men, Jagoffs, and Perverts

Has now, along with Geraldo, become cable's home for the smarmy man with the "porn 'stache".

John Stossel finally lands on the appropriate mothership, FoxNews.

Get a Construction worker and Ron Christie and you'll have the Village People.

All I know is

If 9/11/01 never happened, but the same thing happened on 9/11/09, the GOP and blue dogs would try to have impeachment papers over to the Senate by the time Obama got back to DC.

Naw, forget that, they'd just insist the plane be diverted straight to GITMO.

Y'know I was thinking about buying the Beatles Guitar Hero for the PS3

But suddenly I don't.



On the other hand some Stay-Puft marshmallows sound tasty.

Whatever happened to that guy?

You know the one everyone blamed and needed to be punished for what happened all those years ago?

I sure miss that Al Gore.

Chuck Todd is obsessed with fetishes

Oh deary, when we liberals want just a little something for the poor and middleclass it's a fetish.

Yet the GOP wanting to invade nation after nation, and being for TORTURE is just a reasonable policy position.

Hey, Chuckles, if you are so into "fetishes" may I suggest you wear a ball-gag?

Shorter Michael Duvall

I'm not a sexual degenerate banging a one-eyed lobbyist and someone else while married.

No, I'm just an big ol' outrageous liar.

And I can just imagine how that went over with Mrs. Duvall.

Who is a liar now?

Joe Wilson, we've not learned that even his name is a lie.

Real name?

Addison Graves Wilson, Sr.

I bet he's all the shit at his restricted country club.

How do you get "Joe" out of that?

Well, you don't. You just make it up.

Looks like Broder is collecting honoraria again

From the insurance industry. Seems he can afford to gum quail with Karl & Darby Rove again:



The sexual tension will be so thick you can cut it with a knife. Darby's going to have to be ditched somehow.

Great News Everyone

Andy Card wants to run for Senator in Massachusetts.

Andy's very popular there:

Having a laugh

Well-healed tool Karl Rove seems to have thought it was HILARIOUS that Joe Wilson lashed out at the President.

Which is funny, because the last time a Joe Wilson lashed out at a President, Rove outed his wife as a CIA Operative, which truly was a knee-slapper.

Well this pretty much summarizes yesterday

Shorter Dana Milbank

HARRUMPH! (smirk) HARARUMPH!

The gentlemen needs to save his phoney baloney job.

Just wondering

Are the "morans" waving non-bills:


Comprised of some of the same idiots that did this?

Saved by a Dumbass

From Preston Brooks to Mark Sanford, South Carolina has a proud tradition of electing right-wing thugs. So Wilson, last seen floating away form Tom Hanks, has kept the tradition alive.

So, how many hours into the day will Harry Reid squander it?

UPDATE: More information on Wilson!

"I apologize if you were offended"

That's the take from the sports columnist in Orange County, California (and other than Florida or South Carolina where else?) who thought a kidnapped, raped, abused 29 year old woman should hear after 18 years in captivity. G-E-N-I-U-S!

This guy really should be a right-wing member of Congress with an apology like that.

Holy Crap!

Just...HOLY...CRAP!

Apparently it is not just National Review and George Will that cannot afford editors. This may be the most tasteless column idea I ever heard of. WOW!

A sports column reminiscing about all the sporting events a kidnapped (and raped and imprisoned and otherwise abused) child missed on the way to having their life completely fucked over.

WOW, why some editor didn't put his arm around this moron and suggest -- "maybe a different literary device than this one?"...


I knew Orange County, California was rather fucked up, but between this guy and Representative Eye-patch banger it has been a banner day.

Republican hypocrites

Fucking you while fucking others drawn together to fuck over their love of fucking you over.

Ladies and gentlemen, the most delightfully hypocritical "family values" Republican ever!

Explains so much...

TBogg visually demonstrates the requirement for getting a job at the National Review Online.

I think he underestimates it.

People in a coma are "nuetral" they don't detract from anything.

Folks like Andy McCarthy and Jonah Goldberg actually make all conservatives appear to be less than coma-patients in that they are in error, malicious, and yet, get paid for the honor.

At least if you are in a coma, someone isn't paying you.

But then again, I've never inspected K-Lo's w-2s.


On the other hand though he has branched into regularly twatting (textually) Jonah's alacrity with the written word remains unsullied by talent.



Turth? You cannot handle the Turth, Jonah.

But I'm sure the "turth" is out there somewhere. I'm sure you want to "beeleave".

Two of 50 reasons (or more) to despise Politico that don't involve Mike Allen

When not fellating Drudge by posting dog-whistles for links, they are more than happy to portray Washington, D.C. in exactly the right way to make the rest of us hate it.

Which only serves to further keep the villagers from knowing fuck-all.

9/9/9

Somewhere Roland Emmerich is inspired to write seven or eight lines of dialogue surrounding several explosions that almost destroy the earth.

...or more likely cutting and pasting his last script.

Staying Bought

When introducing his bill, Max should first thank his sponsors before saying anything like a NASCAR driver -- except for turning left of course.


In the David Broderian-sense, Max Baucus is the most honorable of politicians -- he and his staff are loyal to the "right" people. They've been bought and they're staying bought. The White House has not seen his plan, it is not clear how many senators have seen his plan, but he and his key staffer, a former Health Insurance executive have shown it to the groups that own him:

ROBERT GIBBS: I was told that — that K Street had a copy of the Baucus plan, meaning, not surprisingly, the special interests have gotten a copy of the plan

(pic via Meldroc2000)

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The Barbara Bush sensitivity award goes to...

Right-wing idiot poster boy, Jack Kingston:

Kingston Claims Health System Worked ‘Very Well’ For Bankrupt Cancer Survivor Without Insurance

Yes, it sure worked out very well for the guy with cancer and no insurance.

Arbys, Macht, Frei

Robert Stacy McCain, whose existence serves no higher purpose than not only making John McCain look good in comparison, but also his "911" dial-happy brother, has an idea why all those jews are so liberal and what should be done about it:

If Messrs. Podhorhetz, et al., wish to promote conservatism among American Jews, let them find some way to encourage Jewish families to move to small towns in the Heartland, where their kids can grow up hunting, fishing and hot-rodding the backroads.

Yes, get those jews to move into rural areas...where have I heard this before?

It's more than disheartening

It's a level-11 bit of infuriating when "villagers" start spouting right-wing bullshit out of ignorance and then top it off by saying "how dialed in" they are on the issue.



Brokaw's statement is absolute bullshit. The preliminary CBO estimate said the public option would save $150 billion. Meanwhile reality is, health care reform without a public option would be more expensive than health care reform with a public option.

Every village needs an idiot, but must the village be full of them?

It is amazing how punditry is a well-paid position where accuracy is not so important not rocking the boat of your fellow villagers.

Getting by in this world with things like health insurance, a retirement, and less than 2,000 square feet to raise your brood is for the little people, the silly people, the non-village mass known as the American People.

And if you're not a member of the village, well just too far beneath the elite to be dealt with in non-petty manner.

Do not criticize Jonathan Alter, or he'll bite -- or more realistically paddle his hands at you really fast. Remember you've been PWNED Glenn Greenwald:



Pat Buchanan's just a gruff-ol' Nazi apologist, but he's just peaches with Jonathan Alter compared to a dirty effing hippie and his blog.

Well, at least we know there's another person on earth that can be as sanctimonious as Joe Klein.

Allow me to interpret the indoctrination

The text of the speech is blah blah blah "stay in school" blah blah blah.

But as they say, and by they I mean she, and by she I mean only Michelle Malkin because, well...it's the subtext, the indecipherable actions and noises detectable only to feral hamsters, three-legged wombats, Glenn Beck and Malkin, that matters.

And here is the subtext of Barack Obama's speech to children to turn them into little Che Gueveras wearing eponymous t-shirts.

In Morse Code the President will repeatedly blink out "A-l-l-a-h-u-a-c-k-b-a-r".

So now you know. If you hadn't stayed in school, grad-gee-ated. and "done been learned" you would know these things.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Tough day for John McCain & David Broder

The "WE" network and the "Hallmark" network are having competing "Golden Girls" marathons.

Your Democratic Minnesota Senator

Al Franken's gotten a lot of well-deserved praise with his ability to make the shouters take part in a respectful conversation. But as a Minnesotan entering his mid-40s this Al Franken story told by another Minnesota icon of my youth, Fran Tarkenton made me smile:

I did "Saturday Night Live" back in the days when John Belushi was there and Bill Murray was there and the guy who wrote all my scripts that night was your U.S. Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken. I gave Al my No. 10 jersey. About 10 years ago, I was in LaGuardia Airport and saw Franken. He had my No. 10 jersey on.

I'd say Happy Labor Day

But I'd be accused of being a socialist nazi communist athiest muslin trying to indoctrinate our youth and be forced to resign my position from this powerful blog.

Damn straight

Jon Taplin of TPM Cafe makes good use of a graphic. Maybe Obama should take a moment during his address to Congress and say, "Excuse me while I whip this out":

Two Americas

One Party has no shame, the other Party acts like it has something to be ashamed of.

Oh, by all means, no need for a public option

Since the health insurance industry is pretty much a bunch of regional monopolies:

In the past few days, 114,000 Michigan households have received bad-news letters from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, socking individual health insurance subscribers with premium increases averaging 22%, effective Oct. 1.

Blue Cross could have said, "Hey, things could have been worse. We asked for a 56% rate hike first and dialed it back to 22%" -- but that probably would have just made folks angrier.

Instead, the Blue Cross letters simply stated, "We know every Michigan resident faces financial challenges, and we thank you for your business and loyalty to the Blues."

Like they had a fucking choice.

If I may say...

After seeing the commercial far too many times (which I believe would be once) if a Pizza Hut delivery driver happens to run his branded "Ford Focus" into Jim Brewer, I will loudly squeal in glee, JACKPOT!!!!

(BTW, Jim Brewer? Was Dane Cook too expensive?)

From Zoe Baird to Van Jones

There's just no right-wing jihad the press won't pick up and a Democratic Administration won't cave to. The nuttier and more loathsome the complainer, the better.

Van Jones was run out of office because this guy:

Yes, THAT GUY, had a fit.

A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

Yep

Shorter Republicans:

We must ban Obama from indoctrinating students with his point of view...and while we're at it, we must bring back prayer in schools and teach creationism.

By 2012

The GOP will have daily shit fits over Obama indoctrinating people with his frequent campaign appearances.

How...dare...he!

Unforgiveable Blackness

Yeah, it's totally Obama's fault he wants to give a platitudinous talk to school children...how dear he indoctrinate them with his socialistic melanin. The nerve, the NOIVE!!!

Let the lead decrying Republican show you it how it's done:

There once was a political operative who loved to tell crowds he had a simple way of explaining to children the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

"Republicans get up and go to work," he would tell his son. "Democrats get up and go down to the mailbox to get their checks."

This man not only talked to his son about Republican values, he went into public-school classrooms and talked about them as well.

That man is Jim Greer — the same Jim Greer who, as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, just threw a nationwide hissy fit, claiming that the classroom is no place for politics and Barack Obama's "indoctrination."

One Seminole County mother, Barbara Wells, remembers the day Greer spoke to her son's sixth-grade class. "My son said he made some sort of Hillary Clinton joke," she recalled.

IOKIYAR & W.

(via Swampland)

Try to stay calm

Let's not panic too much or have any rioting here in the United States over the World Cup qualifier between Moldova and Luxembourg or Austria vs. the Faroe Islands (you cannot stop Frodi Benjaminsen you can only hope to find him on Wikipedia).

I slept late

Sorry,

Anything exciting happen while I was sleeping?

Did Boehner and Beck find a tenor and alto bass for their crying-shop quartet?

Skills

Okay, does Jonah Goldberg's older, more charismatic brother remind anyone of Kip from Napoleon Dynamite?

Taking Advantage

You know those people that used to get exposed for ripping off older people through aluminum siding scams and taking advantage of them during their syndicated half-hour of faith healing?

Well, they now reside in the GOP and they're called congresspersons.

Here's a REAL death panel

They're called insurance companies:

Researchers from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee analyzed data reported by the insurers to the California Department of Managed Care. From 2002 through June 30, 2009, the six insurers rejected 45.7 million claims -- 22 percent of all claims.

For the first half of 2009, as the national debate over healthcare reform was escalating, the rejection rates are even more striking.

Claims denial rates by leading California insurers, first six months of 2009:

• PacifiCare -- 39.6 percent
• Cigna -- 32.7 percent
• HealthNet -- 30 percent
• Kaiser Permanente -- 28.3 percent
• Blue Cross -- 27.9 percent
• Aetna -- 6.4 percent

Of course, every dollar they don't have to pay is another dollar they can stuff into the pocket of a Congressperson against a public option.

As it was succintly put in the DKos post:

If the private insurers are not paying for care, why do we have private insurers?

Dear Mr. President

As I've said before: I know this is fucked up, you know this is fucked up. But in America fucked up is how we roll.

Seriously, what the hell is the moral justification for this?

"They want to kill us?"

Including the scores of civilians? Does presumed intent make explicitly wrongful acts psychologically justifiable? Do we just get to slop on immoral intent to carry out absolutely immoral acts and get a free pass because we're bigger and stronger and therefore more moral?

And could there be a more tragic symbolism than "they were stealing gas"?

Fucked up is how we roll.

Speakin' to school kids

Is a job for Republican Presidents only - based on past precedent.

Excellent Question

From a TPM reader:

How long did it take the right to go from: "if you criticize the President you are a traitor" to "School children should not trust the President."

(pic via Digby)

Slow learner

Yesterday we learned that NRO SENIOR EDITOR Jay Nordlinger doesn't really follow the news much before he pontificates about what ALWAYS happens.

And he "done got learned".

Or not:

Another pet theme, or pet peeve, of mine has to do with “safe zones” — my recent term for zones free of partisan politics. (These might include concerts, church, city tours . . .). A reader wrote me to say that he was sick of the intrusion of politics into the sports pages — hear, hear. Been singing this song forever. Those politics always — always — come from the left.

I guess Jay picked the wrong day not to listen to Rush Limbaugh:

CBS golf analyst David Feherty: "[I]f you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it ... there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death."

Yeah, always -- always -- come from the left alright.

Nobody can stop Pat Buchanan

You can only hope to keep his hands off your lebensraum.

The world according to Pat:

Poor Hitler, he didn't want war -- and then the British and French made him kill all those Jews, Gypsies, Socialists, Gays, and Slavs, invade Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and Norway.

Is Pat going to Berlin to play Franz Liebkin in The Producers?

Hitler... there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in ONE afternoon! TWO coats!

On Reaping & Sowing

This is the funniest headline I've read all summer:

Conservatives See Need for Serious Health Debate

The roiling debate over health care this summer has included a host of accusations from opponents of the plan that have been so specious that many in the mainstream news media have flatly labeled them false.

Far from embracing the attacks, many leading conservative health care policy experts said in recent interviews that the dynamic was precluding a more robust real-world debate while making it nearly impossible for them to inject their studied, free-market solutions into the discussions.

And they said the focus on what they consider misleading or secondary issues was getting in the way of real questions about the plan they believed worthy of consideration.

To which I say, (a) "Good" and (b) "Too fucking bad".

Go whine to the people who bring guns to "Town Halls" in an attempt to intimidate members of congress. Go whine to Michelle Bachmann as she leads a phalanx of your Republican bretheren in a mass ritual wrist-slitting protest. Go whine to the "Christian" pastor who prays for the president's death from brain cancer. They're all Conservatives and Republicans and they are your base. These degenerates were useful to you once and so you embraced them. Now, you own them. And when the country hears the words "Republican" they imagine a face like this screaming about "Death Panels". Oh, you're "Conservative" and not "Republican". Sorry: they're one and the same. You're upset because the Larouchies are dominating the "debate" on your side? Get over it. Shrieking from your people about Obama wanting to kill granny makes you cringe? Tough.

Get your base under control and maybe someone, somewhere, someday will take you even remotely seriously. Until then, get yourself a razor blade and go pay Michelle Bachmann a visit.

P.S. The NYT reporters ought not flatter themselves with tales about having labeled conservatives health care claims false. From what I can see, that happened exactly once.

P.P.S. "Studied free-market solutions"? BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Moran v. Moran

The thing I know with certainty about Sarah Palin and Levi Johnson is that I really don't like either one of them, never did like her, learned to dislike her even more -- have grown from having no opinion other than some small sliver of sympathy, to not liking the latter. He's as a much a cipher as his near mother-in-law.

The only real battle is who I dislike more. Though I also know, Sarah Palin is the far more dangerous idiot.

The leveraged marketplace of ideas

BEHOLD! The Renaissance Personages of the Right.

In a typically thorough post by Glenn Greenwald (only a Joe Klein could disagree) takes on NRO Senior Editor Jay Nordlinger and others who went into histrionics over the notion of a few celebrities saying nice things about public service and its association with the President of the United States.

Well, we cannot have the current Chief Executive be part of any bromides without him being called a cult figure, or Hitler.

Greenwald gives chapter and verse over the hypocrisy of this notion. To his credit Nordlinger sort of backed down in light of the evidence. However, this statement of Nordlinger, as Glenn noted, really stood out:

Greenwald spends some time on two figures in particular: Angela Williamson and Monica Goodling, appointees at the Justice Department. I regret to say that I had never heard of either of them, or their doings. It’s not that my memory is “either very short or very selective.” It could be that I’m not always a very attentive reader of the newspapers.

Um, you are the Senior Editor of a conservative publication about POLITICS. Now, based only on observation, it is quite possible NRO hands out "Senior Editor" titles profligately but there is more media out there than FoxNews & Rush Limbaugh.

(pic from here)

UPDATE:

Nordlinger apparently doesn't read his own magazine or blog either.

MATLOCK!!!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Levi Johnston, Public Servant

Christ, Sarah Palin is even worse than previously thought.

Update: as usual, Gawker nails it.

Part of the Problem

TPM Reader FC hits the nail on the head.

Honest to God, this is why I've had to stay away from the blogs these past few weeks. Kneejerk reactions to anonymous sources, hysteria amped-up by rumors, five-minute manic/depressive gyrations arising out of the prognostications of the world's worst pundits. It's exhausting.

Labor Day starts now. Turn off MSNBC. Don't click that Politico link. Stop reading all manner of bullshit. Go outside and enjoy the unofficial last weekend of summer.

Well, well, well

Here's something that can be regulated and there's no 2nd Amendment restriction whatsoever:

A new report from UC Davis researchers finds that American gun shows are the leading source of guns used in crimes, not just in the United States, but Mexico and Canada as well.

The undercover study by UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program is called "What Goes On When Everybody Thinks Nobody Is Looking". The report includes hundreds of hidden-camera photographs and video taken from 78 gun shows in 19 states.

The report shows the two-thirds of gun sales at gun shows are through licensed vendors. The others are sold through unlicensed vendors or private gun show attendees, who do not have to do background checks or file any paperwork. The study state that 85% of recovered crime guns have gone through at least one private party transaction following their initial sale by a licensed retailer.

Other than the NRA's patented spaz attack there's no Second Amendment problem in requiring paperwork and background checks at gun shows. And if this study is verified there's no way public safety won't trump any argument the NRA wants to make.

But, sadly, nobody will have the guts to do such a thing.

Yeah, that's right...

Wingnuts (is Lou Dobbs on this one yet? He cannot resist Nancy Pelosi fiction) -- Nancy Pelosi banned patriotic music on Congressional phones while you're on hold all so she can mandate this replace it:




You tell me that doesn't rock!

Unexpected Tweets (I'll keep it clean)

Vol. 1:



But what are your opinions on the public option?

I'm posting this confident in what I'll find

I'm tired and for today at least my creativity is not being found in the coffee.

Let's just go to the ol' dependables and see what I can find (6:33 a.m. central time).


(6:35 a.m.) Meh, she's done unintentionally funnier.


(6:38 a.m.) Yeah, vodka vs. rum, no difference if you're an idiot. Still, seems more like a question for Jenna Bush, but all-in-all just rather sad, as opposed to humorous. Although it may explain Larry King's love life -- now I need to drink.

Man, I'm going to have to dig deep this morning. This voyeurism is becoming harder work than I anticipated:



(6:41 a.m.) Yeah, you never know when someone's out to get your Whitman's Samplers.


So in summary, things are lame all-around right now.

Things I'm pretty confident of

That years ago CNBC resident genius Maria Bartiromo was intimately familiar with the drinking-age restriction of her home state.

After that, nothing apparently.

Clearly a well-qualified business journalist for CNBC though:

In March, 2006, Bartiromo appeared as a contestant[1] on the game show Celebrity Jeopardy!. She was matched against CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper and Kweisi Mfume, President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. After two rounds Bartiromo finished with $0, having only attempted to answer two questions in the Double Jeopardy round, and answering only one correctly. Because her balance of $0 following the Double Jeopardy round would have made her ineligible for the Final Jeopardy round, Maria was 'gifted' $1,000 in order to keep playing. Maria answered the Final Jeopardy question incorrectly, and finished the game with $300 of the $1,000 she had been 'gifted'. Her charity was awarded $10,000, as per custom.

How it will all go down

Um, hooray?

President Obama is planning for “a new season” of more hands-on advocacy for his troubled domestic priority, an overhaul of the health care system, according to his advisers. Among the likely steps would be a nationally televised speech that close allies have urged, and a 10-year price tag for the overhaul below the $1 trillion mark.

At this point, unless he breaks a couple of beer bottles and says, "Alright, who wants some?!" I'll probably be underwhelmed...well, whelmed at best.

Here's the deal, he'll make a speech, he'll be all rational as he disappoints his base who has no real alternative, the right-wing will make up some new series of crazed bs that "nobody anticipates" the media treats it seriously and nobody wins except in the Pyrrhic sense.

Or not, as I need to end on an optimistic note for no particularly logical reason.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

No one could have anticipated

Truly the Brett Favre of uterus's.

The Duggars due to plop out 19th child from the Jesus Hatch, will have to move beyond golf course analogies to field full offensive and defensive football teams.

CEO of The Jerk Store, Inc. writes a memo

This may be the saddest most pathetic thing I've ever seen posted at a major news organization's blog. Unless you consider "Townhall" or "FoxNation" major news organizations.

Behold the trifecta of petulance, pomposity, and puerility of Joe Klein whining about Glenn Greenwald in all its pathetic form. Project much?

For the past several years, Greenwald has conducted a persistent, malicious campaign to distort who I am and where I stand. He is a mean-spirited, graceless bully.

And that's JUST before we get to the completely bullshit ad hominem non-sequiturs (a real literary accomplishment).

And the responses that must seem like batting practice from Greenwald and Aimai.

Klein is just as full of himself as ever, but it's easy to see there are probably some editors and employees of Time, Inc. that are truly embarrassed as all hell. It's like watching a drunken oaf peeing his pants for the third time the same evening.

Don't forget Poland

Teabagging protesters tell me Obama's planning on invading it any minute in "Operation Canned Muslins" on the 70th anniversary of his "Poster Loving" clearly Nigerian forebear.

Glenn Beck's going to cry

Boy, first you stop threatening them with electric drills or raping their wife and kids and then this happens:

In the evening, Obama is hosting a dinner celebrating Ramadan. The event in the State Dining Room will also highlight the contributions of American Muslims.

OMG, OMG, OMG! He must be as much of a "Muslin" as he is a Jew! Unlike America's greatest Preznit who never did such things la la la la la.

I've learned from people like John Boehner a few things: one is how to cry; one is how to abuse a tanning bed; and then I've learned the following --

America has to play to its strengths --

1. Using powertools inappropriately -- all hail the poultry companies of Spencer, Iowa for knowing this as innately as your average Michelle Malkin reader;

2. Being ignorant about all religions that are not our own -- and even our own -- especially when they do not show the proper respect for Jesus, be it Old World or New World, and the proper level of disrespect for women. It's a delicate balancing act, but we have a real talent for patting ourselves on the back about it;

3. Bombing random assortments of brown people -- a Hitman's Sampler if you will;

4. Letting Brett Favre do whatever the fuck he wants and paying good money for it.

Cheering for Death

The Wall Street Journal's Editorial Page has long been among the most intellectually bankrupt of places -- it makes the WaPo look both better and derivative at the same time. The leader of the immorality is James Taranto and today he exposes himself like a pervert with a new London Fog:

If the Bush administration's policies really did keep us safe for 7½ years, then it stands to reason that the Obama administrations' policies may be endangering us now. Certainly that is how the public would see it in the event of another terrorist attack.

So l'il Jimmy Taranto hopes for an attack and a chance to start removing brown areolas with his teeth -- in the name of Jesus and/or Cheney.

City on a Hill and all that shit.

USA! USA! USA!

America's Concern Troll

What can you say to such simple-minded nonsense other than, "Fred Hiatt give that man a bonus -- and an assistant to abuse!"

No one can possibly believe that America is now safer because of the new restrictions on enhanced interrogation and the subsequent appointment of a special prosecutor. The captured terrorist of my fertile imagination, assuming he had access to an Internet cafe, knows about the special prosecutor. He knows his interrogator is under scrutiny. What person under those circumstances is going to spill his beans?

Cohen then goes on to spew lying bullshit to support his bullshit claim -- and the product you get is exactly what you'd imagine.

Suck on this Grassley

Good ad, will more embarrass him than anything else...if that's possible, after all look at his tweets, he may be beyond embarrassment.

The means are the ends

Max Boot, would have his spirits crushed by being made to wear tighty-whities.




And so it continues, anonymous Bush aide to Ron Suskind in 2004:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

Max Boot, prime fashioner of bizarro world:

It would be easy to conclude with a “high degree of confidence” that one of the most effective intelligence-gathering tactics in the war on terrorism — the aggressive interrogation of captured terrorists — has been eliminated and, along the way, the agency charged with being on the front lines of the war has been severely degraded in operational effectiveness.

Other than complete and utter falsity balanced only by sheer and grotesque depravity Boot has it exactly right.

(pic from here)

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]